BEIJING (AFP) – China’s retail sales last month grew at their fastest clip since the start of the year, official figures showed yesterday, an encouraging sign for Beijing as it looks to boost sluggish consumption.
Officials have since late September unveiled a slew of measures including interest rate cuts and debt swaps intended to boost activity in the world’s second-largest economy, which has struggled to regain momentum since the pandemic.
Among the woes facing policymakers are slumping domestic consumption resulting in deflationary pressure, a property sector bust and geopolitically fraught trade disputes.
Retail sales expanded 4.8 per cent on-year in October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, speeding up from the 3.2 per cent in September.
The reading also significantly outperformed the 3.8 per cent forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts and represents the best reading since February. Figures also showed the national urban unemployment rate fell slightly to five per cent from 5.1 per cent in September.
However, industrial production growth edged down to 5.3 per cent in October, the NBS figures showed, from 5.4 per cent the previous month.
The NBS said in a statement that in October “positive factors accumulated and increased and the national economy was stable, with progress and growth”.
Beijing is pushing for an official national growth target this year of around five per cent.
